The Making of the Pentecostal Melodrama Religion, Media and Gender in Kinshasa [Hardcover]

How religion, gender, and urban sociality are expressed in and mediated via television drama in Kinshasa is the focus of this ethnographic study. Influenced by Nigerian films and intimately related to the emergence of a charismatic Christian scene, these teleserials integrate melodrama, conversion narratives, Christian songs, sermons, testimonies, and deliverance rituals to produce commentaries on what it means to be an inhabitant of Kinshasa.

I would highly recommend this fascinating? ethnography to upper-level undergraduates, graduate students, and scholars in anthropology and African, religious, media, performance, and urban studies.??? American Anthropologist

This book is& an exemplary combination of detailed ethnography and anthropological theory that is rare in the study of Pentecostalism. Pypes writing is flawless and engaging. She also allows immediate access to some of the film material through the publishers website. Moreover, Pypes reflections of her own role as researcher provide transparent insights into the dynamics of her fieldwork. This dimension also makes the book a reference-point for those interested in participant observation among Pentecostals.?????Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

Clearly, the analysis and conclusions of this book reach much wider than Kinshasas Pentecostal groups alone. Not only does it have far-reaching consequences for contemporary thinking on religion, and where and how to study it, it also opens up discussions in the fields of media, popular culture and arts, youth, gender and sexuality, and urban studies. As such, the book - with accompanying moving images available at Berghahns website - is of great value to a much wider readership than only those interested in Pentecostalism in Africa.?????Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions

Pypes book is a contribution to alÓI